Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
We’d show them we were more than precious mates kept in pretty cages. That we were capable. That we could be unflinching. That we were willing to do something terrible in an effort to make the world a little less dark for our sisters and children.
Truth be told, I envied Miranda and her cronies for their age and experience. Those women had lived. Possessed years to consider motherhood—to consider this strategy for decades, maybe centuries, that I had been roped into after only days. Each of them aware of exactly how the world worked outside the academy.
Functioning from a place of almost-perfect ignorance, too young, there was a very real chance I would disappoint my child.
I certainly lacked real-world experience.
Inviting a daughter into this existence for dubious reasons did not make me a great example of motherhood. Demanding every female hybrid Miranda could reach to do the same marked me as worse.
My desire to see my sisters rightly educated might condemn an entire generation of little girls to hell.
And already, I was terrified.
And excited.
And oddly hopeful.
I would not suffer this alone. Maeve was right. Hybrid women had to do this together.
The thought of new life, of hybrid life just like me, in my arms? I never so much as let myself daydream on the topic. But now? I wondered what she’d look like. How she would smell snuggled close to me. If she would coo and nuzzle at my breast.
And I shivered.
Would she love me as I had loved my human mother?
I already loved her—the simple idea of her—more than I might ever be able to bear. And would most likely murder Cyderial should he so much as think of taking her away.
A single thought of being parted from my child, and a storm of imagined violence churned within me, sweeping aside the gentler parts of my psyche. The vorec in me stomped back and forth, eager to have her way. Eager to disembowel anyone foolish enough to dare harm my child.
To indulge her would be to invite life to grow within me.
She whispered to me secrets, tempted me to allow my baser urges to rule.
I conceded.
Immediately, pressure began to build in my chest, sweat prickling over my brow to cool in the evening breeze. Low noise came next. Not a thrum, no pulsating drum to threaten all nearby. A low song.
My song.
Loud enough even I could hear its beauty.
A shiver shook me. Bones grew loose, tendons relaxing as I rolled my shoulders and hummed quietly to myself.
With a rapt audience, absolute attention from both men and women, I let all in that courtyard know I was true to my word.
The strangest sense of knowing came over me.
I knew my daughter’s life was sparking, waking….
A cramp undulated about my inflated belly, catching my breath, visible to all who stared.
Sniffing the air, lips parting as if they might taste, the women watched me as if mesmerized.
As if I were truly beautiful while half-mad with my strange humming, a few of them began to offer their own song. Like this, I could hear them sing. Understood what the men found so enticing.
“It is a beautiful thing to witness.” Miranda’s soft gaze fixed on me, her head cocked to the side, as if admiring a delightful weapon she might wield. “Your three generals approach. Speak with them before you are too far gone, my dear.”
The vorec in me had no interest in wasting time out in the open—she dreamed of a soft place to rest, imagined the scent of her offspring, called to her mate while she burned me alive from the inside.
Soft edges developed around my vision, the lights in the courtyard far too bright. A new, powerful urge demanded I go to ground. That I burrow.
And not just I.
A dark-haired, dark-skinned beauty to the left of Miranda’s elbow—her scent changed. A powerful, heady perfume wafted from her, filling the courtyard as her body signaled the work it had begun.
I watched her shiver and sigh, move as if popping every bone in her spine. One moment, she was docile, the next, hastening to her mate, who was rough with her in a way she clearly enjoyed.
He had her over his shoulder, racing off to see to her needs, while other females began calling to their mates, beckoning partners to claim all they offered—upsetting the gathering, the evening, and the tables.
Chaos grew, couples crashing together, all witnessed by the unfortunate unmated males who had no female to sing for them.
Skin growing so sensitive that even the thought of touch had my breasts aching, I took a stumbling step away from the table and almost wept in relief to find Cyderial’s strength meet my back.
He had come to me.
Hands to my arms, squeezing a bit too tight, he pressed his nose to my hair and inhaled as deeply as his ribs might stretch.